EAGLE COUNTY \u2014 A third-party equipment failure above Glenwood Canyon knocked out AT&T phone service to the lower valley this week. Other providers weren\u2019t impacted.<\/p>\n
According to an email from Suzanne Trantow, AT&T\u2019s lead public relations manager for the Rocky Mountains, that equipment failure \u2014 from a company AT&T contracts with \u2014 had been repaired Thursday. In the meantime, though, one of the firm\u2019s \u201cSatCOLT\u201d trucks was brought in to provide service for first responders in the valley.<\/p>\n
Eagle County Sheriff James van Beek said many of his officers on this side of the county use AT&T phones. The loss of service required officers to make some adjustments. Most of those adjustments involved switching their phones to Wi-Fi calling instead of using the cellular network. The catch, of course, is that Wi-Fi calling only works where there\u2019s Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe quickly adapted,\u201d van Beek said, noting that police and other emergency responders also have a functional radio system they can use out on the road.<\/p>\n
Anita Denboske and her family have owned Active Communications since 1996. Denboske said the company\u2019s office in Eagle had received a number of calls about the service outage. Denboske said people at Active were also encouraging customers to switch over to Wi-Fi calling.<\/p>\n
Not everyone understands how that works, and van Beek said he and others at the Sheriff\u2019s Office have been showing colleagues how to make the switch.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a quick switch, but it\u2019s understandable that some people don\u2019t know about the Wi-Fi option. \u201cYou just expect everything to work,\u201d van Beek said.<\/p>\n
Got wifi calling?<\/p>\n
A number of phones have the built-in ability to switch to wifi calling. You can usually make the switch in your phone\u2019s settings. Others may need to download an app to enable calling over wifi instead of the cellular network.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n